 Hey everybody, welcome back. It's going to be back again in this Tan Books podcast. We've done several of these now and we've had authors from Kerry Grass to Noel Mering most recently, a number of great authors and today I'm really excited to interview Connor Gallagher of Tan Books who has a special role at Tan. We'll get to that in a few minutes and he's got a new book on Parenting for Eternity, which is really good and you'll see that as I explain a little bit about it and ask him some questions about it. So first of all, Connor, welcome. Good to have you with us. Thanks for having me, Paul. It's great to be here. So before we talk about the book, tell us a little bit if you could, if you don't mind about yourself, your family and and how you got to Tan. Sure. So yeah, I'm the CEO of Tan Books. I've been running the day-to-day operations of it for 12 or 13 years now. My father and I and some others formed a company called Saint Benedict Press a number of years ago and we acquired Tan Books out of bankruptcy about 12 years ago, a little bit more. And so my day-to-day job has been to be running that and Paul, it's been almost a conversion. I didn't fully appreciate the treasure that Tan was when we first got it and it was a bankrupt company. So I'm trying to make the light stay on and just basic everyday business stuff. But as we got the business settled and it was running smoothly and the operations were working, then I got to turn my attention to the books. And it was, you know, I was raised Catholic, of course, you know, I've always been tried to be a devout Catholic. But then I got to experience the incredible power of the tradition that Tan has preserved for so many years, for 43 years before we bought it. So that's been just an ever ongoing deepening of my own faith and for my love of the tradition and for certain types of spiritual writers that the former owner so wisely preserved, especially during the chaos of the 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, he was one of the few people who preserved the voices of the saints and tradition. And so these books have just significantly impacted me and my family and has deepened my faith. So, you know, I've written a few books before, but then, you know, I know we'll talk about my book in a minute, but it heavily impacted me. And I think that this book and hopefully more to come is kind of the fruit of my own living with the rich tradition that Tan books has preserved. And I just want as many people as possible to experience the traditional expression of the faith as much as possible. It's a beautiful thing and it's impacted me a lot. So that's my personal or my professional life, but I got number 15 child is on the way. And my wife is the superhero. I'm kind of co-pilot. And the oldest is coming up on 20 and the youngest is one and then one in utero. So, and we've had our share of miscarriages. So there's been more than that, but we, you know, we've been extremely blessed and all of our children are healthy and happy and hopefully going to go to heaven. And so that's trying my darned us to do that amidst all the chaos of raising a bunch of kids, all the chaos of, you know, our busy life, our digital life. So, you know, I'm surrounded by these blessings, but it's made me really contemplate, okay, what am I doing with these kids? You know, am I trying to get them into Harvard or to heaven? And if it's heaven, then what do I need to do each day? And that also influenced the book. But yeah, parenting is hard. And everyone knows that whether you have one or 15, you're 100% parent. It's just your times divided up differently. So yeah, that's, that's me in a nutshell and CUF 10 and dad of 15 kids and, and co-pilot to my incredible wife. But when you got a number of new titles there, parenting is hard, 100% parenting, I guess I get these book ideas in my mind as you're saying this, but, but people watching now. So you should know I was about five minutes late running late getting here today and I was going to say to Connor, well, you know, I was running around picking up my kids, you know, but I have eight kids, but then again, you know, 14, I mean, no sympathy here at all, right? So that, so that's impressive that we have, we have a good friend who a couple of good friends who have 13. So you've got the record now among people that, that I personally know are coming up, coming up on 15. So a lot there that you said that I'd like to unpack. And if I go too far or ask you questions that I should just ignore it, go on to something else, dodge the question, whatever you need to do. But, but you had expressed kudos there earlier to the previous owner who had preserved many of those. So who was that? Thomas A. Nelson, which is what Tan stands for. Most people don't know that, but yeah, Thomas, I heard it was Thomas Aquinas Nelson. I don't know if that's true if it was Aquinas, but man, if it is, it's just crazy. But yeah, that Thomas A. Nelson, God bless him. And, and so in the publishing house, and I've got to say the, the fact, what, what you've done and your family and, and your brother Brian as well, and, and really saving Tan books. I mean, I got to tell you, Connor, that's just tremendous because I, I mean, I'm not just saying this to be nice. This, this is true. I mean, the, the two best Catholic publishing houses are Tan books and Ignatius Press. They just are. And you are Sunday visitors kind of hung in there. And there's a few others. And Sophia Institute Press is doing some good things now, but I don't think anybody can match what the top two have done. And I've got to say, I think no one compares to Tan in terms of translations and preserving classics. I mean, if you want to find a book by some Italian saints, you know, who died 100 years ago or, you know, Teresa Newman or Anne Catherine Emmerich or St. Gemma Galgani, I mean, it's going to be a Tan books book. And it's going to be something that was in another language that somebody from Tan grabbed and translated. And if not for Tan, we wouldn't even, we would even have access to so many of these. That's exactly right. And I am trying very hard to, you know, continue that tradition. And, you know, we talk about gold mining around here. You know, I mean, there is gold buried in so many places that we have to find and bring up to the surface. You know, for example, Paul, there, you know, I think the arrogance of modern Americans think that every good work has been translated into English. I mean, I think I felt right. And, and then I've, you know, as we're digging, we find that incredible books have never even been translated from the original Latin into English. For example, we're coming out shortly with a book by Thomas A. Kempis, who's, you know, the author of Imitation of Christ and everyone knows Imitation of Christ. What if I told you there's multiple works by him that have never even been translated into English? Amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. And so there's many others and we are continuing to do this. And, you know, I feel a moral duty as a steward of the previous owner's legacy and the tradition of the church to try my darnedest for the rest of my years to continue what they did. And that's mind gold and bring it to the surface and bring the attention. And, you know, it's one thing to like promote a living author like you, you know, you can go on radio shows and do publicity and sell a bunch of books. But how do we do that with a dead guy? You know, I mean, they don't go on radio interviews and they don't, they don't blog and they don't. So it's a challenge. And a lot of our time behind closed doors, Paul, we're saying there are so many great dead authors that have been lost. And how do we make them known and loved and put a following around them? And I don't have all those answers, but that's what I'm trying to do. It's hard because they can't, they can't go on YouTube shows. But there's a way to do it. And I'm committed to doing that. Yeah, I have this image in my mind of Katharine of Sienna going toe to toe with the gals on the view, right? Or, you know, Chris Cuomo going at it with Augustine, you know, I pay to see that. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. So the very fact, given all those great books, Connor, I mean, the fact that the publishing house was in trouble 12 years ago. But that, but that's where book publishing was and still is. I mean, my, my, my first book, I think it sold, I don't know, 75,000, 100,000 copies. It was really my second book, my first bestseller. And that barely made like the New York Times extended bestseller list. That was in 2004, right? And today, and the, and the advance that I got for that was, was really, really high. And in those days, those days, it's 17 years ago, you know, books were selling that much, you know, they were people were buying and then came the whole internet age publishing. And this has been horrible too for, for print edition magazines, so many of which went belly up at the time. But so many people just quit buying hardcovers, print editions, right? Whether magazines or books or anything else. So you guys are really, truly done a good work, noble work coming in and saving town. So we try every day. Good. Yeah. Yeah. The, as for your book, okay, because there's so much more that, that I could ask you about that. But, but you, so you've done is this is not your first book, correct? No, I wrote a book when my, my oldest kids were pretty young called if Aristotle's kid had an iPod, subtitle ancient wisdom for modern parents. And when I was doing, when I was doing my masters in philosophy, I noticed that Nick, the, the Nicomachean ethics by Aristotle, it was all about how to develop virtue, how to develop true friendship, how to live the virtuous life amidst, you know, the kind of the evil world and Aristotle was giving great advice. And he named the book Nicomachean ethics after his son, Nicomach. And, and he named it that because he wanted it to be a roadmap for how to become a virtuous man for his son. So I was saying, well, if that's a roadmap for his son, it should be a roadmap for my son. And so I wrote if Aristotle's kid had an iPod, this was back when iPods were a thing, I should have called it iPhone. I didn't know they would go out so fast. But yeah, I was trying to show how Aristotle's philosophy applied to raising kids today, especially in the digital age. It's really more pertinent today than even back then because digital is even more crazy today. So that was my first. And then my other one was a little book about anxiety called still amidst the storm. And it's a reflection on the gospel of Mark four, where Jesus tells the water to peace, be still and he calms the storm. And I relate that to the anxiety of our modern world. And I try to show how living in the present moment with silence and stillness is really the remedy to our anxiety. You know, in fact, before COVID, I would tell people, Paul, I give a lot of talks to Legatus and other Catholic groups. And now, and before COVID, I would say we are living in a pandemic, a pandemic of anxiety. Yeah. And so now I say we're living in a pandemic of anxiety and COVID's not nearly as bad, you know, and so, so that little book was about trying to deal with anxiety, which I've dealt with and everyone has. But this is different and kind, you know, this book really taps into the tradition of the church. And so I, although I'm kind of proud of those, I'm really proud of this one, because I feel like this one goes to the, to the depths of tradition. And it's, it's finally the book that I, that I really wanted to write. And so I feel better about this than I did the others. Sure. Sure. All right. So there's your sequel. What if Aristotle had a Twitter account? And of course, the, you could just write in the beginning of that, he would be canceled, right? As he would, he would be canceling Aristotle, right? But, but, but yeah. And indeed, anxiety, I've gone through the same thing too. And I never thought I would ever have that. And, you know, my wife will tell you that I'm overly confident, right? That I'm too confident in myself. But, but in, but in this modern world, and it's not just a matter of having a bunch of kids, right? I always tell people all the time that I'll say this to my wife all the time that even if you weren't running, running around chasing your kids and dealing with kids issues, you'd be chasing around dealing with something else. And probably something that's not as edifying, not as wholesome, not as good for you. And, you know, maybe wasting more time online reading more junk and doing other things. I actually don't have a Twitter account. Well, wait, no, I actually do a publicist created it for me about 10 years ago. And she said, Oh, you'll love it. You'll love it. I've never even looked at it. But, but I, and I told her I stood the last thing I need is to be tweeting, right? I mean, I already get to 400 emails a day, do this all week. I'm just going to implant a microchip in my brain. And I'll just kind of blink. And I mean, what can you do? But, but yeah, it's this world of anxiety, the hustle and bustle. And, you know, Cardinal Orinze, among others have said, right, that are not Cardinal Orinze. Yeah, Sarah, about just silence, the perfect silence and how often do we read in scriptures, right? That the Jesus went off alone in silence to pray, right? He didn't fire off a tweet, right? He didn't go argue with somebody. Sometimes the best response is just silence. I find that drives people crazy, by the way, too, if they send you an email or kind of a nasty email, they expect you to do, you know, bam, right back. And if you just take your time and sit back for a little bit, they become a little frazzled by that. I don't even know how to react to that. They're just used to texting and getting instantaneous responses. Yeah, we live in an age of tweets and little bursts of pride and bursts of anxiety. To all your viewers out there, you know, and to you, one of my favorite books, and it's not a Catholic book, but it's a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport, who's a computer engineer at Georgetown. It's a bestseller, deep work. And the whole idea behind it is, you know, and this should be at the forefront of every Catholic's mind that, you know, as intellectual creatures, we really need to go deep into almost a contemplative or meditative state on whatever it is that we're doing, whether you're a computer engineer or an author or an accountant, you know, to be able to focus deeply is actually something that's very unifying with God, no matter what we're doing. We don't have to be contemplating Scripture. If you're a accountant, but just shut out the distractions and to allow your mind and heart to go deep into your work. First off, you get a better work product than your competitors, because everyone's so distracted. And secondly, you reach a certain fulfillment as a human being. And we're not functioning like human beings. We have so many distractions. We're just a culture of ADD. So deep work is one of my favorite works. And I think that's the reason I write books is, you know, running a business, it's chaos. But I usually write in the morning, you're a writer, you probably have your own writing habits, but I try to get my cup of coffee and my Gregorian chant going early in the morning, and then I write for an hour or two. And it's, it's, it's beautiful. It's like, it's, it's like, you know, kind of a spiritual ecstasy for me for a couple hours. And then I have to go and go into the real world and battle all the chaos, you know. So what, what time do you write in the morning? Do you get up at a certain time to start writing? So, you know, as I've gotten a little older, not that I'm old, but you know, it's, it's getting later and later in the morning, you know, but I usually try to try to, you know, be at my desk writing by, by 730 and try to get, you know, an hour, hour and a half in before I go to the office. When I was, when I was younger and, you know, I had to run every single part of the business. I was writing at 6 a.m. in the morning. So, I mean, actually, it's weird, but, you know, as my business has, has, has evolved and I have better managers to run everything, so I don't have to run the day to day. It's actually enabled me to sleep in a little later and, and to write a little later. But, you know, actually, like my, my ideal time really is probably starting at, you know, 615 or something like that. And, and, and that early, the earlier, the better. But, you know, with, with all the kids, you know, I have babies getting up at 6 o'clock. Right. And I try to let my wife sleep in because she's usually up with some kid in the morning. So I kind of, I kind of have morning shift. Sure. And so, but by the, you know, teenagers or the middle middle-aged kids, they're coming downstairs at 7, 730. And so they take over and then I hit my home office. So, you know, when babies are around, I don't really get to write at 6 o'clock in the morning as much anymore. So. By the way, this is just like me. So, so I, I do the same thing I set. So I set my alarm for about six and then another comes on at 620. And I get up. I usually, it depends on if I had enough sleep the night before when I fell asleep. So, so we don't have any babies at home right now. So that's a big difference. But, but, but my wife gets up and, and she goes, she teaches exercise. She comes home about 7, 715 takes the kids the mass. I'm on, I, but I'm on duty, right? From about six to nine during that time, getting breakfast and so forth. But I try to get a good two hours in writing during that time. And I've had, I've had colleagues at Grove City College come to me and say, you know, I just can't write. I can't get the time. How do you do this? And I'll say, okay, here's what you got to do, right? You know how you take time during your day to go to like karate practice, right? Or to do your workout or whatever you block out two hours a day. Sometimes you might only get an hour and a half. Sometimes maybe an hour. Guess what? Sometimes you might get three, right? And during that time, don't dare check emails, stay off email, turn it off, shut it down. Cause that's like, that'll just suck you right in. And you write during that time. And I mean, think about it. This, this is one of the reasons I like doing this podcast. It's all advice for authors. If you did that, if you wrote for two hours a day, it is easy to write a thousand words. It is, it is. I found that like, if I don't have to research, then in an hour, I can usually produce, I mean, it has to be edited, but I can produce about 750 words an hour if I'm really humming. Sure. And, and so, you know, if I have to research or, you know, rewrite, then it's a little slower. But yeah, the uninterrupted, what I call deep work, the deep work of one or two hours is more than most people do in a day. You know, most people, most people live in just nonsense ADD mode and their mind switches focus from one project to another 80 or 90 times a day. Actually, statistics have shown that. So you have to batch your time and cut off everything and go into your mode. And it's like triage, isn't it? I mean, because you're dealing with all, putting out all these other fires. But, but it, you know, if you just, I'm telling you people, you got to stick to it, right? For those two hours, you do nothing else but that. If you wrote even 1000 words a day and believe me, you'll do more than that, right? Connor and I, but do the math 1000 a day. Oh, you like one of the most prolific authors ever. Yeah, 5000 words in a week times, times 50 weeks in a year is 250,000 words. Yeah. That's a 700 page book. Yeah, exactly. It's just the discipline and organization of doing it. And then, and then like for me, being an academic and so I'm off in the, in the summer times, I'll have, I'll get periods where I could spend a whole day on a project. I mean, those summers are really precious, right? So you might not get that at all. But even if you just get it, get the hour or two in a day, it makes a big difference. So are you familiar with the book, The Intellectual Life by, it's an old monk, last name, certilogens, mispronouncing it, but it's called The Intellectual Life. It was written by, I think, either a Dominican or a Benedictine monk. My son knows it and he's been encouraging me to read it for three years. Yeah. And he's saying everything you're saying. He's saying that like, if you wanted to be essentially a fantastic, like a Thomas scholar, even if you're a plumber during the day, right? If you just dedicated an hour a day to Thomas Aquinas and reading him and, and thinking about him over the course of a couple of years, you would become a fantastic Thomas. I mean, it doesn't take that many hours, but we just live our life in this foolish like ping pong balls being bounced back and forth. So, you know, you see the people who have become great scholars in different things, and it's usually a little bit every day consistently over an extended period of time. That's what it takes to become a success at anything in life. You know, we just don't do it very well. And you can, and most monks are a plumber during the day or a gardener or a baker or a brewer, right? They all have, they all have those kind of duties. And then, I mean, I know people who learn languages and they'll do Duolingo for just a few minutes a day. And that doesn't sound like much. And it's not, and you need, you need more. But if you at least don't miss, and you do that every day, you'll be surprised how much you pick up. So, all right, now I got to hit this book now. So because we only have an hour in total, we could take more time, but I always try to keep it within an hour. So Parenting for Eternity, a guide to raising children in Holy Mother Church, like Connor Gallagher and Steve Cunningham, our fabulous producer, will be putting stuff up on the screen. And so there's so much here. I've got bent pages. I've got annotations written all over it. And so it's trying to think what's the best way to even begin to cover this? And I guess I could start from the very beginning. I'll jump around a little bit. But you have these really nice endorsements. And the one is from Father James Altman, which is the first one, and I got to read it because to be honest here, Connor, I thought, well, he's being really nice. This is kind of effusive, but he's exaggerating, right? Mr. Gallagher's words are so full of grace that your heart cannot but be moved to the core. I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'm getting every one of my parishioners a copy of this book because it's priceless. It is priceless because your children's soul is priceless. Praise be to God and thanks be to Connor Gallagher for, well, there are no words, just no words for the grace you will find inside. And again, I thought, well, he's probably just being nice. But when I read this, I thought, this is a kind of book that a priest should give to all the parents in his parish. I mean that. And then Kerry Gress, in his latest work, Connor Gallagher stirs a generation of parents from the hypnotic trance of the modern world with an awakening to their children's eternal destiny. And that is indeed what you do. And then I got to note this and then I'll ask you a couple of questions. You start the book with, is the epigraph the right word? I think maybe with a quote, a dedication, dedication. And this really hit me to my miscarried children. I might get choked up when I read this. I am sorry I do not think of you more often. Intercede for me that I may one day embrace you with the father's love. And I even, well, wow, this really hits me because I think of this to Connor from time to time. I mean, I guess it's okay if I say this on the air, my wife had several miscarriages. And from time to time, it'll just hit me when I'm driving down the road by myself or whatever that these were souls. I mean, some of these were well, the very first one was 17 weeks. It was really sad. We had our two youngest children with us for the ultrasound was not expecting it. And I think someday if I make it to heaven, am I going to get up there and there's going to be four other kids. I'm going to say, who are you guys? I don't know. But you look like my daughter Amanda, right? You know, you look like Abigail, you look like Paul. And let's say, well, these are your miscarried children. And I'm going to feel bad. I'm going to think, why wasn't I thinking of you every day? How selfish is that, right? That I wasn't. But time passes, you don't think of it very often. And so that kind of plea from you, I am sorry that I do not think of you more often. And then intercede for me which surely they can, right? And I just, I love that. That is just beautiful that you thought of it. Yeah, thanks, Paul. You know, I feel the same way. I mean, you said it perfectly, but I if I prayed as St. Anthony and, you know, St. Francis or, you know, whoever, whoever else I happen to be praying to, why would I not pray to my own children? You know, and I have every, I mean, I had every desire for them to be baptized. So I believe in Catholic teaching that they're, they've made it to heaven. And, and even, you know, some of them, I was able to baptize with water. So I mean, I'm good. I'm good and believing that they're there. Well, if that's the case, what in the world am I doing by forgetting about them? I mean, I have some powerful intercessors here. And so they can help me maneuver through the silly things I do. You know, I'm able to hide things from my kids here on earth, you know, because I'm very imperfect. They don't have to see all my own mistakes and I can put on a good face for my kids, but my kids in heaven, they know it all. They know it all. They know all the stupid things I do. And so I'm not as well. That's a scary thought. That's a scary thought right there, right? Yeah, when we get to have it, it's all going to be made known, you know? So now it is a beautiful thing. And, you know, I don't approach every single miscarriage is a complete tragedy. It's not the same as a, you know, a five-year-old kid dying of cancer. I don't equate those things. You know, it's somewhat nature taking its course. But still, it is a sadness when you think about it, but it's also a beauty. And I think it's worth parents thinking about that. It is indeed. And so you begin with, and I'm telling you, I've got so many things bracketed here. I could just read it. Is this on tape, by the way? Is it, is it, is there a, an audible version out? I am, I am reading it tomorrow at the audio station. Yeah, so. Oh, you're reading it personally. I am. You should. You should. So I know you have all sorts of time on your hand. So that's, I've never done it before. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah. But it's so personal that, that, um, I mean, of all my books on tape, I don't read any of them, but I mean, this is just so personal. I think it begs, it begs for you to read it. Sorry. The introduction, line one, look at your little child, see the little smile, the little nose, see the little arms and legs, hear the sweet little voice that calls your name and joy and sorrow. If you could, you would imitate God and number the hairs upon your little one's head, treasuring each one. And you quote Matthew 1030, Lou, 1234, but that little soul, that little soul shall never return to dust. It shall, God willing, forever rejoice before the splendor of all that is good, true and beautiful, reveling in inexplicable joy, overcome with inexhaustible glory. You go on here, you quote, you talk about, this is on pages two and three, look at the children who suffer, right? Uh, how for the, the malnourished children, your heart plummets, how foolish we are. If you're little, if your sweet little one had cancer, suffering the pangs of chemotherapy, needles and fear of the unknown. If your little daughter's head was bald and covered with scarves, and I've seen that. I used to work in a hospital over four years. I worked in children's hospital in Pittsburgh. It's just heartbreaking. Imagine if it was your child. It's hard enough seeing it being anybody else's child, right? Where your son no longer had the strength to throw a ball. You would rightly move heaven and earth to save your child's body with the most innovative treatment. You would, without hesitation, work a second shift or even beg for money from family, friends and strangers. You would expose your own sorrow and plead for mercy from your creditors. You would cease to care about your own health, wealth and reputation. Your personal dreams would gladly be abandoned and replaced with one simple dream of holding your child's broken body in your arms one more day. You would indeed die a thousand deaths to salvage your child's one life. So here we go. But you must confront the following question with, with scrutiny and sincerity. How much of this paternal affection do you, do you direct to your, toward your little one's soul? All your efforts to save that little heart that pumps blood, but so little effort to save the soul that lives forever, right? And this is what you mean. This isn't just about parenting in the here and now, or at the soccer game or the baseball game, or even dealing with a very sick child in the hospital. This is about, as you say, parenting for eternity, because the soul is eternal. Yes. You know, I think that I tried to write a book that was not tactical. You know, this is not about, you know, how to discipline or how much screen time or, you know, what are the rules for dating? You know, I mean, it's not that I was trying to go to the most core issue of parenting. And it is, it is ridiculously simple, so simple that we miss it. But every single thing that we do as a parent, Paul, every little thing, every big thing, there are eternal consequences to what we do as parents. And we are impacting our children's salvation one way or the other in everything we do. And so I think about, you know, the great extents I go to take care of our kids' bodies. But then, but then I, you know, I'm shoddy on saying the rosary at night, or I don't take my kids to adoration as often as I should, or I don't, I'm worried, I'm more worried about them going to the dentist than I am going to confession. I mean, you know, when you step back and think about this thing, why are we worried about 80 years and not 8 trillion years? And, you know, and something that really dawned on me, actually, I didn't put it in the book, but kind of just the summary of the book for me in a sense is, you know, Paul, if I said to you, imagine a triangle or a square or an octagon, you can do that. You have shapes that you can put in your head. But if I said, imagine an 87-sided object, like you already can't do it. It's too big. You can't, it's just an idea. You have no picture of it. So if I said imagine a thousand years, you can do that because we think about a thousand years back, or we have science fiction about a thousand years from now. But if I say eternity, it almost doesn't mean anything. It loses its meaning. It's too big to imagine. If I say eternity, you don't have any picture of that, except maybe pearly gates and clouds, you know. And so it's, so, you know, one day I was sitting around thinking, Paul, like I was looking up at the sky and I told my little kids, you know, with your own eyes, your own glorified eyes, you know, you will see the sun burn out into dust. You will see all those stars. You'll see the entire Milky Way, you know, just collapse into a ball of ash. And you'll see actually a new heaven and earth created, you know, that's glorified. But, you know, you see these things, these astronomical things out there, and imagine your child living so long that they're going to see the sun burn out. And indeed they will. They will live that long with the soul. And we don't think like that, and we need to start thinking like that. I hope that makes sense. Oh, that's beautifully put. And conversely, right, if you're a Christian, if you're a Catholic, you believe in heaven, you believe in hell too. By the way, I'm reading right now Paul Figpen's book that Tan published last year, Saints Who Saw Hell. Yeah, and you quote in here too, 15 statements from Jesus in the New Testament about hell. And when you read those visions, the saints visions, what Jesus said about hell, it is a beyond conceivable beyond conceivably awful place. And so to live in eternity with that, conversely, yeah, that's why these are the first things, right? This, this is what matters most. And you say here, I'll pick up this quote, Have you gone to great lengths to construct your entire life around your child's health, education, social life and sports, so they can be well rounded, productive and successful citizens? A resounding yes comes to mind. But have you given even 10% of such effort to their spiritual formation? Have you considered heaven and hell 10% as much as you consider worldly success for your growing child? My wife is probably better at it than I am. If it wasn't for her, they probably wouldn't do prayers every night. I do them with a couple of the kids. I know I don't do as much. And this is a wake up call for me. I got to tell you that this makes me think I should set this out and be more intentional about doing these things because you got to wonder too, Connor, are we going to be held accountable someday for having not parented our children for eternity? And I don't mean that in a way like, oh, now I'll do it because if I don't, I'm going to hell, right? I mean, the importance is everybody's soul, right? But in a way, a lot of this, the parents are the first educators. That's where spiritual formation takes place. And if we're blowing it, that does not speak well for us. You know, I actually thought about putting, it was a short thought, I didn't last long, but I thought about putting a millstone on the front of the book. Yeah, yeah. And here's the thing, Paul, at least for me, when we read that passage in Scripture, it's better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea than to lead these little ones astray. We sometimes think that means we're going out proactively like teaching a kid the wrong thing or teaching them to do something horrible. But it's not so much that it's also just to neglect. I mean, when God has given us all of revelation at our disposal and the sacraments, and we just don't take advantage of those things, that's leading them astray through neglect. I mean, it's the sin of omission is just as real as the sin of commission. And so I think parents, I mean, I'm speaking to myself here, this is why I wrote it, but we have to sit down and think, each day, have I done, have I neglected my duty to not just try to keep my kid from doing something bad, but have I neglected my duty to teach my kid to love our Lord and to live a saintly life, I mean, to pick up the cross, to be humbled, to be pious, to pray to our Lady. I mean, all of these things the Church teaches us to do, and the answer is no, I'm worried about paying my electric bill or whatever stupid thing comes up. And I'm worried about logistics, who's picking up the kids going here and there? Oh, we need to pick up a gallon of milk. Oh, the kids got this practice or that, or we have the logistics. And God, I think, is very merciful for those things. But yeah, he is. But really, we sit down and we think, and we've all seen families that have had sick children with cancer or a real tragedy, or some kind of thing that completely is a nuclear bomb to their daily life. All of those other silly things are put on hold and they focus on what's important. And all I'm trying to say is that's happening right now, like, okay, maybe your kid doesn't have a brain tumor, but your kid has a soul. And we need to work on that right now, today, tonight, when they go home, you need to treat it like it's an urgent, eternal thing because it is. And with a brain tumor, you might even have, you would have time to assess this more, right? Like this child is going to die in a few weeks, a few months, a few years. So you really start to push, but what about the kid that dies in a car accident, completely unexpected, right? And it's, you know, are you ready? Have you have you sufficiently helped prepare that show? And by the way, it's tough for us as dads too, because, you know, in many cases, well, obviously there's two income families, right? But in many cases, we are the primary breadwinner, even though, as you know, our wives do most of the real work, right? But a lot of times, my wife will say, do you really need to write that? Do you really need to do that? And well, for the money, yeah. I mean, and it's not to buy a boat, right? I tell you that, right? I mean, it's just, it's just so, so, so we got money next year for tuition and for this and that. And so there are things where, you know, it's kind of stuff you don't want to do. I'd rather be sitting around reading Aquinas, right? But no, I got to bang this out or whatever, because I got to make money. It's part of my moral duty. And, you know, I think God gets that and our lives are filled with those things. But I'm trying to emphasize that we can go about our daily life with an emphasis of using every engagement with our children to spur them on to heaven, you know? And even if it's just, you know, short little conversations or even texting back and forth with your kids, you know, we're dealing with the logistics of getting them, you know, to adulthood or, you know, whatever it is, safely and soundly. But, you know, use those little moments, even if it's just texting with your kid, hey, tell your college, if you're texting with your college kids parents out there, if you're watching the show, if you got a college kid, text your kid tonight and tell them to go to confession, tell them to go to adoration. I mean, yeah, that might seem awkward at first, if you're not used to doing it. But I can also tell you, Paul, that not that we do everything right, but I have caught my 19 year old in adoration at on Bellman Abbey campus. And that's like, oh, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, you know? So I mean, the reward if you can train your kids to do this. And then another thing, and you're not asking this, but I'll just say it, I think a lot of parents, if you're like me, you know, you screwed up and you haven't taught your kids the right way growing up. And so it's, you feel awkward kind of coming back and retroactively trying to fix errors that you've made. But we have to be comfortable going to our adult children or our teenagers, at least, and saying, hey, look, I didn't do this right. You know, I've been a bad example, or I didn't, we didn't use to say the rosary every night, and we need to start doing it. Silly me, we should have done it. Hey, we didn't use to go to confession as much as we should, or hey, we didn't use to go to adoration as a family. I know, and I raised you that way. I could have done a lot better. Forgive me, please, because I didn't always set the right example. But hey, I have to embarrass myself now. I have to recognize we haven't done this well. And we've got to go try to do this. So, you know, even if they're not there, I think that most of the time the kids will respect mom or dad showing sincere regret for the past and sincere attempt to get better. And my kids forgive me. I asked their forgiveness. They forgive me. And, you know, it's very important and very important to be open and candid. And I was with my second oldest son on a really long drive just last week. And I was kind of telling them about some of the crazy stuff that I did. And it was just to say, you know, look how much, look how much, how badly I screwed up. I can't believe I'm alive. And, you know, he turns to me and he says, have you been a confession lately? Right. And that I tell by, you know, by my theological son, well, I struggle with confession. You know, I'm a former Protestant. It's not that I don't, I haven't, I don't believe in the idea that sins can be forgiven by a priest or anything. It's just odd seeing I'm uncomfortable doing it. I don't like sitting face to face with a priest. And he starts telling me, well, you need to do, you need to go to confession. So if all things to have your kid say that to you, that's, that's a good thing. I would say it means we've done something right. It means my wife has done something right. I'll at least say that. I tell you, my 17 year old daughter, I found myself almost getting spiritual direction from her at the time. I'm saying, again, how's this happen? It's a beautiful thing. And I think, you know, we just, yeah, we have to recognize that we're, that we're flawed parents. And, you know, I think overly intellectual guys like you and me, I mean, you're an intellect. I'm a quasi intellect. But I mean, you know, I think we overthink and the church has given us and I tried to put some of this in the book, but the church has given us such simple and direct things that we know we need to do. And I, I am tempted to overanalyze these things and complicate them when, you know, that's the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Gospels all day long. You know, what God wants is a sincere heart, a pious heart of humbly worshiping him and not being embarrassed about being that we so badly want to think our way around simple piety. I do. I want to find every reason that I can articulate my faith better than just show a simple humble expression of it. And that's, that's Pharisees. That's, that's what that is. Yeah, I had to reason my way into the faith, right? It was not, it was not an emotional experience experience. And also too, you get people who want to kind of win a theological argument, right? Convince somebody, but sometimes it's just, you're better off just living a righteous life, right? And modeling the faith. No, let me say this, Paul. You know, I, I know for a fact that I've raised my kids to be conservative. No doubt about it. In fact, they can tell you all the problems with the Biden administration just fine. Okay. I know I've raised them to be orthodox thinkers, you know, they know catechesis and, but sometimes I step back and say, wait a minute, have I raised them to be Christian? You know, I mean, and I'm not trying to draw a distinction between Catholic and Christian, I mean, but just of a follower, a disciple of Christ. And, and I'm much better at teaching them to be, you know, a Trump supporter than I am a Christ supporter. I mean, it's, I'm just foolish like this. So I'm, this is an experience myself. That's why I wrote this thing is trying to, to really think, okay, am I teaching my kids to, to, you know, to just be a simple follower of Christ, a humble and pious Catholic doing what the church, holy mother church teaches us to do day in and day out, and don't over complicate this because that is of the devil to over complicate this. By the way, one of the really nice things about being Catholic is the church provides these parameters, these guidelines, the sacraments, the liturgical calendar. So, so as a parent, you've got a structure backing you up, right? So you still have to do the faith formation at home and so forth. But you, you have daily masses, you have confession, you have the sacraments. I mean, this is just a gigantic help, you know, not, not to criticize my evangelical friends, but, but if you're in an independent non-denominational church, you might have Bible study during the week and so forth, and you meet on Sundays and you have fellowship. But to have that every day layout, guidelines, step by step of what to follow, that provides an order in your life that that even if you're screwing up as a parent to some extent, if you've taught your kids to follow that, you've helped them considerably. Yeah, this is not, this is not an Rubik's cube to figure out, you know, the church has given us very simple guidelines. Rosary, and I tell people, look, I've kind of boiled it down. If you, you know, the rosary, say it frequently, if you can every day, it takes 12 and a half minutes, you know, if you're Irish like me, bless, you can say it real fast, but, you know, but rosary confession, adoration, like, it doesn't need to get complicated. And you have all of the things you can pepper on it with saints, devotions and novenas and litanies and all these things. But if you're close to our lady, if you repent of your sins regularly and confession, and you, and you believe in the true presence of the Eucharist, and you receive him worthily because you went to confession, it's going to work out. We don't need to over complicate this. And so I did emphasize those things a lot in this in this little book. I was just reaching from my rosary ring to grab it. But it's one of those things where, you know, I had people say, I can't find 25 minutes to sit down and kneel in a church and say a rosary every day, neither can I. So, so, you know, if, if I might get through, I might get through it on the treadmill, on the elliptical, right? I might get through a couple of decades, whatever. And if my goal might only be one a day, I'd like to do two or three, right? But my goal is minimum one rosary, one divine mercy, chocolate. But, but, you know, start low, right? You do what you can. We do it during tours, like when we're doing the dishes at night. Right. I mean, that's, that's when we do it. And it's chaotic. And we're yelling the Hail Mary over the vacuum cleaner. I mean, you know, but we, but we get it done. And every once in a while, I try to remind my kids, I know, I know we're moving all over the place and everyone's doing something, but try to have the piety within your heart. You know, I mean, Jesus Christ, the Pharisees who just, their lips move. So we have to try to, even if though we're doing it while we're moving, whether it's on a treadmill or driving, right, or doing dishes, you know, we do need just, just interiorly just pull that back saying, okay, I mean this, you know, yeah, and you could probably get more fired up and run faster in the elliptical if you're listening to Led Zeppelin, right? But, you know, but, but hey, you should, it's a time where you can say a rosary instead. Our time is flying here. I can't believe this. So I'm going to ask you just a few things here. So I love that you, that you're your first chapter after the introduction is called the four last things first. I thought that was clever, right? The four last things first. So explain what the four last things are and why you say we need to put them first. Death, judgment, heaven, hell. You know, those are the things, you know, we talk about, there's only two things, certain in life, death and taxes. But there's really only four certain things. It's death and judgment and then heaven or hell, you know. And so those are things, your kid, like listeners, I promise, I swear to you, your kids are going to go through death and judgment and they're going to go to heaven or hell. I mean, it is, it is, there's, there's no getting around it. There is no other day beyond that. And so, you know, we have to begin with the end in mind, whether it's a, whether it's a business plan or whether it's, you know, a travel to Europe, you have to pick your destination and all the little decisions to get there. That is the destination. And so I think it's actually helpful for us, Paul, to, to envision actually to almost meditate upon the fact that our children are going to have their own judgment. And I liken it to, you know, um, imagine your child standing before a judge, you know, in an orange jumpsuit with like, you know, chains between the feet and hands and a sentence is about to be given. And you're sitting on the side as a parent. And your day of parenting is over. It's, it's done. You are done, you know, giving advice, you are done helping them form virtues and vices. It's over. And it is up to that judge. And there's nothing you can say about it is completely out of your control. And as a control freak, that doesn't sound good. So if we envision that, um, I, I mean, that's a little scary, but I think it's helpful for me to say, all right, I need to help my kid right now before that judgment occurs. Yeah. Imagine that the little toddler that you're pushing on the swing at the park, four years old is someday going to be standing there for God being judged. And you're not going to be there, right? At that point, you've either helped or hurt the process, right? So, so the four last things, don't think of them last, don't think of them at the end, right? Think of them at the beginning, think of them first, right? Be prepared for them for the beginning, for when they come later. You got it. And that's, that's parenting for eternity. You have, you have the, the longest chapter in the book. This is, is interesting that it, that it's the long, that it's, that it's the longest chapter. So there are about 10 chapters altogether, but after that come the virtue of piety and the virtue of humility. And the, the virtue of piety is the longest chapter by far. In fact, in my math is right, it's 45 pages, which is much longer than the other chapters. And that's for good reason. What, what, what, why, why, why the virtue of piety? What do you mean by that? Why is, why is this a big deal? Well, I think it was a big deal for my book because I'm not very pious. And, and so, you know, I, I think that, you know, the virtue of piety is, is, you know, well, first off, it's also a gift of the Holy Spirit. And so I need to remember that. So any of you who have gotten confirmed, you know, if you're lacking it, you need to call upon that gift of the Holy Spirit to give it to you. And that does help me. But, but it's, it's this, you know, I, I'm not naturally a very reverent person, you know, you know, there's something about, you know, you know, lack, you know, I have a little ear reverence streak that just kind of runs through me. And I can kind of laugh that off. But, but in, but piety is this interior sense of reverence and awe before God and taking it very, very seriously. And so I try to, I try to, you know, explain in the book that through the sacraments, through our devotion to our lady, we're trying to teach our children to have a sense of wonder and awe for all things divine. And so they need to be awestruck, you know, they, you know, when they watch a, you know, a high impact movie, they might have this look of wow on their face that we need to raise our children to see divinity. I mean, divinity is so out of this world we can't, again, we almost don't think about it because it's too hard for us to understand. So we need to try to instill in our children, you know, this sense, for example, if I recall, I say, you know, when we're, when we're praying before the Eucharist, when we're at mass, you know, mom and dad need to show physical reverence for God in the blessed sacrament. So much so that where our kids see it, like, right, my kids think I'm a big, strong, tough guy. But before our Lord, they need to see a humble, pious man who is willing to prostrate before our Lord. And that really hits them, right? To see the kind of tough masculine dad who's throwing the football on the front yard, you know, maybe swearing, I can't help it. I try not to use real bad language, right? But, you know, they know what I'm like, right? And then to see you actually there at mass, right, during the consecration, with tears in your eyes kneeling, right? You say, you forgive me, right? Forgive me. And that it hits them. It does. And that's the best catechism is seeing your physical recognition of Connor is nothing for that Eucharist, nothing. And I need to physically display that in front of all my children sitting in the pew. And that to me, that's my expression of piety. And I need to instill that in my children. And hopefully it's sincere, right? Which of which I think it is in our case, my kids laugh sometimes when, you know, during the, during the liturgy, Laura, the priest says, Lord, I we say, I'm not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. And they'll hear me sometimes say, you know, to myself, Lord, I'm a no good for nothing lousy, right? And I mean it. I mean, you know, my daughter's kind of giggling, but I'm looking, I'm like, well, I'm really serious, right? Welcome to the club. Right. And they think you and they're thinking to themselves, you're not really that bad. And now you should, you should, if you knew my thoughts and some of the things I've done in the past, I'm a good for nothing lousy piece of, you know, dog doo doo. I really sound like Martin Luther here, right? Right? What did Martin Luther say, a pile of snow, come snow covered, whatever, whatever. Yeah, done with snow on top, you know, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, and you say that the three areas particularly related to the virtue of piety, the devotional life, the liturgical life, and the sacramental life, which is exactly kind of a summary of what we've said here, right? And in the last 20 minutes, I got no more than 10 minutes left. And I don't want to take more of your time. We want to keep this under an hour. You follow the virtue of piety with the virtue of humility. And that is, I guess you probably already hit on some of that. I'll let you think if you want to say something else about that, I'll give you a minute. The quote that you share here is from Kajetan, married the Bergamo, and let's see, quote, in paradise, there are many saints who never gave alms on earth, their poverty justified them. There are many saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting or wearing hair shirts, their bodily infirmities, excuse them. There are many saints too, who were not virgins, their vocation was otherwise. But in paradise, there is no saint who was not humble, right? That's not amazing. That says it all. And so, yeah, I mean, of all the virtues I could talk about in this little book, I talked about piety through those means that you talked about the devotional life, liturgical life, sacramental life. But then the only other virtue I really wanted to focus on is humility because Paul, in a way, I've come to believe that there's really only one virtue. I mean, there is no other virtue. You're not charitable. You're not fortuitous. You're not or you don't have the virtue of fortitude. You don't have the virtue of anything unless you're humble. And all God wants from us is a humble soul. And anytime there's virtue present, there's humility. Anytime there's sin, there's pride. So from a parenting standpoint, I encourage, I encourage parents to, when you're recognizing good behavior in children, try to point out, okay, that's kind and humble. Or if you say, oh, that was very brave of you and humble. Or when they're doing something mean, like stop being mean to your, you know, to your brother, you can also stop being mean and prideful towards your brother, like add humility and pride to the, to the critique, because it helps them see pride and humility are present with every single one of those actions, everyone without exception. And so I find it's so foundational that we have to as parents point out and help our children learn to look through the lenses of humility and pride. So they see life in that way. That's a wonderful gift to give children. I mean, you will not get on your knees. You will not accept Christ, right? Unless you humble yourself into believing that you need that to begin with, right? I mean, it's the proud man that thinks that he doesn't need God. I don't want to get into this, but the fact that June is celebrated as pride month, right? I mean, you don't, you can't, you don't celebrate pride, right? I mean, pride is the first of the deadly sins, right? You have pride led to the fall. I mean, pride is the complete opposite of being humble of having humility. It really does. I think you're right, Connor. It starts with humility above all. Yeah. And, you know, the book that you read the quote from is a book called Humility of Heart. And as the CEO of Tan, I can tell you somewhat authoritatively that it's the best book we've ever published. Sorry. It's not, it's not even the devil and Karl Marx by Paul. It's definitely not that. No, no, that's an outstanding book. But I'm saying the best book we've ever published is Humility of Heart. And it has the unfair advantage of being about humility, which is the foundational virtue, but it's also beautifully written. And, you know, look, yeah, my book's good. But if you had to pick one book, don't read my book, go read Humility of Heart. It's transformative. And so, you know, my, you know, even with my own, my own kids, I got a, I got a son who's, you know, well, I got different, I won't say him, I won't say it online, but you know, I got different sons that can, that can struggle with pride and vanity, you know? And, and that's a natural thing for people. And so I'm pushing humility, pushing humility. And they're old enough now I'm saying, read this book, read Humility of Heart. It's everything. If you, if you have humility, you have everything. If you have pride, you have nothing. See, that's a perfect example of what Tan does. And this is a good way to bring this all full circle. Yeah, I've got a writer, Humility of Heart, Tan books, 2011, Cajetan, Mary, Bergamo. And I don't, I don't know anything about that book, but it's probably really old, probably 1600s, right? Yeah, it was originally an Italian, I think, way back when, and then Bishop Vaughn, who was kind of a famous Bishop, he, a Cardinal Vaughn, he translated it into English in the, in the late, in the early 1900s. And it was like his final Will and Testament, you know, of translating this into English for the first time. It's the greatest book we've ever published. Wow. Sarah Maldonado, get me a copy of that book in the mail now. We'll do it. We'll make it happen. Yeah. Well, so, so we got, we got to put this to a close, but this has been a fantastic Connor Gallagher, parenting for eternity. And Steve Cunningham will put the book up on screen. Thank you for all that you're doing that the new authors you're bringing in the old authors that you're preserving. And, and anything you want to say in closing, how about Tann's mission, right? Especially under you and your brother, your family to, to make people saints, to make people holy. You know, thank you for that. And, you know, I struggled for a long time writing our mission statement. And, you know, the first few years I had a page long mission statement that no one could remember. And then a few years later, I had a paragraph mission statement that no one could remember. And so finally, I bought it down to one simple thing. The purpose of Tann books is to help people become saints. And that's, that's all I'm able to remember. But it's supposed to infuse every decision we make about who we publish publishing people like you with great works, like you've done with Devlin, Karl Marx and more to come. But, you know, we want to make books that help people become saints in a very dangerous, evil world. And that's why I wrote this little book is I want parents to think their primary role is to not to get your kid to Harvard, but to get them to heaven. That's what it's all about. Yep. It really is. It really is. Well, great job. Thanks for this. And I think Father Altman is right. I mean, this is the kind of book that you're a priest. You had to get by 50 of these and give them out to parents in the parish. It's a short book. It's not that long. And, and even if you didn't read the whole thing, if you just, if you can just get the very essence of this message, this is a wake up call. It really is. And, and indeed, you're spending all that time, we as dads, you know, working to make money to pay for our kids to go to wherever, wherever, put a roof over the head, the mom, she's helping the kids education, maybe they may may be through work as well, helping them pray. But, but ultimately, you've got to prepare them for judgment day, which could come out of nowhere. Right. It could come right now. It could come tomorrow. It doesn't have to be 80 years from now. You might not have much time. So thank you very much, Connor. Yeah, yeah, this was great. And everybody, thank you for listening. Go to our website. Just if you can't just go to 10 books and go there, order this book, order Connor's book, check out our other titles. And we will see you all again soon in other podcasts. Take care. God bless.